


And the home of the wolf shall be my home

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Implied Relationship, Magical Realism, Mild Gore, idek, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he's sixteen Rust seals his soul in a bottle and throws it into the sea.</p>
<p>If he's stuck in one place at least the most important part of him will get away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the home of the wolf shall be my home

Rust kills a wolf when he’s thirteen. He’s lying on the cold dirt, clothes wet with the mud of half-melted snow. He can’t hear Travis but he knows he’s there, somewhere in the periphery of his vision.

The wolf appears from behind a frosted slope; unhurried and alone, no trace of a pack in the almost silence of the early morning. They were hoping for a buck or a doe, but Rust keeps the gray-white hide in his sight and settles his shoulder against the butt of the riffle. The wolf raises its head, ears perked and yellow eyes deep with intelligence.

It goes down with a whimper, a sharp, unfinished sound that sprays vermillion on the snow.

Rust gets to his feet and approaches carefully. Travis comes to stand behind him, claps his back once; a sharp, short slap against his shoulder blade. The animal is not quite on its side, one of its front legs bent awkwardly under its body, drops of blood staining the short fur of its face.

They carry it back to the cabin and Travis hangs it from a hook by the backdoor; it needs to be bled, gutted and skinned. What can’t be eaten can be worn, can be carved, can be made into something useful. They work in silence, sharpening knives, cutting into the flesh. Rust puts his hands inside the wolf’s open belly and pulls, takes out all the things that made it live and plops them in the sink.

He rinses the lungs and liver, sets aside coils of intestines. When he reaches in to get the thick clots filling the heart he finds a stone inside.

Rust stares at it on the palm of his hand; it’s not quite a sphere, flatter on one side, definitely wider than the tubes once coming out of the heart. It’s smeared brownish with congealed blood; he rinses it clean and the dark shade washes into a swirl of orange and red. Rust’s never seen a stone like that; the bright colors twist and blend into each other like a summer sunset.

He doesn’t show it to Travis, doesn’t even mention it; just slips it into his pocket and goes on with his work.

He puts it under his pillow when he goes to bed, keeps running his fingertips over the smooth surface. He doesn’t question how it got into the heart, something in him has the certainty he’s holding the wolf’s soul in his hand.

 

There’s an old guy in town who sells souvenirs and trinkets; wood carvings and geodes. Rust shows him the stone; the man says it’s called a fire opal, tells him the closest place to find something like that lying around on the ground is four thousand miles away.

He offers to buy it from him but Rust refuses.

“It’s mine.”

_It’s my soul now,_ he doesn’t say.

_____

 

At sixteen Rust decides he can’t keep living in this place. He needs to get away from the cold, from the monotony of the forest and the town. Away from this existence of barely eating, barely thinking, of doing the same things over and over again.

What else is there for a rough hunter’s son? Another wild thing, another shot, another mile deep into the woods. Another pelt and pound of meat sold at the market. The ever-present stench of fur and blood. He has a half-remembered image ―perhaps made up― of a high, unrelenting sun; he wants to chase after it but, without money, without friends or family, without a place to go, the whole idea of _somewhere else_ seems beyond impossible.

He puts his soul in a bottle ― an ancient apothecary flask he stole from the thrift store―, screws the lid as tight as it’ll go and seals it with a stick of wax he found in Travis’ drawer. He’s working in a fishing boat for the season, sailing at dawn and pulling nets all day long until he can go home at sunset, damp and miserable. One evening, as the boat starts its way back to the shore, Rust takes the bottle from his jacket pocket and throws it toward the sun, watches as the same tide that rocks him lulls it out of sight.

If he’s stuck in one place at least the most important part of him will get away.

_____

 

He saves enough money, enough courage to get on a bus and leave this life behind. Travis calls him weak. A deserter. Rust can’t bear to tell him he’s right.

As the road unfolds outside the frosted bus window he thinks of his soul, orange sunray trapped in brown glass, floating along the Bering Sea. He can almost feel the water lapping at his skin.

_____

 

Texas is sunny, dry; it warms his bones until the white winters of Alaska feel like a dream. Rust makes a career in the police, something he doesn’t quite like but at least is good at. Love makes up for it; he builds a home in the fall of Claire’s ribs, in the growing curb of her stomach when she carries his child.

He’s too busy exploring the uncharted territory of happiness to worry about ocean currents and chance. Why would he need a soul when he has Sophia?

_____

 

Happiness doesn’t last.

The night Sophia dies Rust cries himself to sleep, dreams he’s cutting the wolf open, blood and guts up to his elbows. When he sticks his fingers inside the wolf’s heart he finds it empty.

_____

 

Killing a man is barely different than killing an animal. Hunting always had a calmness, a purpose; Rust never felt this rage, this absolute hatred when pulling the trigger. He fires three bullets into the junkie’s head and doesn’t give a fuck about the consequences; the department can take him outback and shoot him for all he cares. Sophia’s dead, Claire is gone and he’s just a hollow body.

He seals Rust inside a bottle and lets Crash toss it away, not caring where it lands.

_____

 

It takes three slugs in his side to bring Crash down. Rust wakes up in the hospital, disoriented and sore, like someone else’s been using his mind with little care. More than anything, he’s disappointed he’s not dead.

Northshore is his idea of hell; an emptiness with nothing but himself. He lies in his narrow bed, wrists strapped to the mattress and thinks, thinks, thinks about his soul sinking to the bottom of the sea.

_____

 

Rust refuses a pension and forces the department to give him a new task. Texas can’t wait to be rid of him, finds him a new master soon enough. He moves to Louisiana and, for a while, functions almost like a person again. He has a parking space at work and a roof above his head. He has a partner that sometimes acts like they are friends. He has dates and dinners, hurried lunches eaten perched on the hood of the car as the sun beats down on the bayou. He has a secret he’ll have no trouble taking to the grave.

Seven years that can be counted in a single name: Marty Hart.

_____

Rust destroys their partnership in a haze of alcohol and bitterness, rips it to shreds against the kitchen counter of his faceless apartment. He doesn’t truly realize what he’s done ―what’s been done to him― ‘til Maggie pushes his hands away.

He runs and runs, until he reaches the edge of the world. Alaska is flatter, duller, colder than he remembers. He works for any boat that’ll take him, then any bar when he gets sick of the vastness of the sea. He keeps his body busy, numb, and drinks instead of thinking.

_____

 

He goes back to the Yellow King when he’s ready to admit the defeat of returning to the one place he tried to escape. Rust drives south, intent on paying his debt and finding his guy even if it means he has to escort him to Hell himself.

_____

 

The flare crosses the sky above his and Marty’s heads, and Rust relaxes, lets go of the tendril of pain keeping him awake; at least he’s glad his corpse won’t rot in here. At least Marty’s safe.

He wonders if some bored medical examiner is gonna find an impossible fire stone inside the chambers of his heart; his soul restored from the waves.

_____

 

He’s ripped out of the darkness like he’s rising to the surface from the bottom of the ocean. He tries to hold on to something, tries to scream but the water fills every inch.

He wakes up and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

_____

 

Marty makes room for him ―in his life, in his work, in his bed―, tends to his wounds until they heal and offers him a future beyond the bland meals and sterile rooms of the hospital.

It takes Rust a couple of months to accept the fact that he’s moving in. Marty shoves his clothes to one half of the closet and tells him to make up his mind about which side of the bed he wants. Rust chooses the left.

“Nightstand’s all yours, just leave my shit on the mattress, I’ll move it to the other side.”

There’s not much in the drawer: a comb, some batteries, pens, three quarters, a photo of the girls. In the back corner there’s a small jewelry case. Rust doesn’t know what it says that Marty keeps his wedding ring in a velvet box next to his bed.

“It’s not what you think it is,” says Marty from where he’s leaning against the doorframe, a full smile crossing his face like he’s actually delighted to see the box.

“Really?” teases Rust with a cocked eyebrow. “’m not gonna find a diamond ring with my name on it?”

Marty snorts. “Go ahead.”

He opens the lid and feels the air get punched out of his lungs. Inside the velvet case is his soul.

“See?” Marty gives him a shit-eating grin.

“Where did you get this?” he asks, voice a wrecked whisper.

“Did I ever tell you ‘bout the time I went to the west coast? California?” Rust shakes his head. “The summer before I joined the force, right before Maggie and I got married. I wanted to see what it was like so I just drove there, by myself.” He frowns at the memory, like he’s just noticing that’s an absurd reason to cross the country. “Well, I was at the beach one night, just sitting on the goddamned sand when this thing washed up next to my feet, I swear. It was in one of those fucking old timey medicine bottles, if you can believe it.”

Rust lets out a chuckle that steps right on the edge of a sob. Of course. Of all the possibilities. Of course it would be Marty; he’s the only one who’s touched all of Rust’s wretchedness and stayed.

He holds the stone up to the light; the orange and red caught in their static twirl, a cloud set ablaze.

“Do you have any idea what this is, Marty?”

“A fire opal, smartass. I know stuff too.”

“So you do,” concedes Rust gently, without mockery. He keeps staring at the stone, smiling so wide his cheeks are hurting.

“Damn gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know, Marty.”

“If you’re so taken with it, it’s yours,” says Marty easily, his big, warm hand cupping the back of Rust’s neck. He’s not just giving a trinket away, there’s weight at the edge of his words.

Rust nods and puts his soul in Marty’s palm, curls their fingers around it. He presses his forehead against the strong wrist. “You’ve taken good care of it, man. Keep it for me a bit longer, would you?”

Marty stares hard at him, brows knitted, but shrugs. “For as long as you like, Rust.”


End file.
